A lot of people have asked him why he chose the name he did, why not something with a G to mirror Grace, or something cooler-sounding, and his answer is always simple; irony. Which of course is often quickly answered with a look of confusion or a question of "what do you mean?" - and he shrugs, because you know what? They shouldn't have asked him in the first place, so why should he grace them with a further answer than that? He doesn't ask why Drew is Andrew or Clare is Clare, because he knows their parents named them, so why should people ask him why he's named what he is? So no one ever really got it, no one understood, and they just assumed he liked it.
However, when he and Becky are talking about names, just a silly discussion about their future and the possibility of children and marriage - of course after University, only then, Becky reminded him - as they were sprawled out on his basement couch together watching a particularly girly movie Adam had never seen, and would normally be offended to be forced to watch if it were his mother's suggestion, and Becky giggled. "At least I know they'll definitely be named well; no one will be naming them John just because or a meaningless name... they have you" she says, and it confuses him for a moment, to a point he was sure she noticed the look on his face, so she continued. "You chose Adam because it meant something, it meant that God made you a man, right? Because it's ironic, and like... a slap in the face to people who sat there and called you by whatever name you were born with, you're proclaiming that that's how God made you, ha-ha, I'm an Adam, guys, see?" she explains, and for a moment Adam is surprised. Not one person had ever been able to understand it that way without an explanation, not even Clare, who he was certain had a similar amount of biblical knowledge had ever connected his name to Adam and Eve.
He had chosen it one day, at church as a very young child, his mother was on a religious kick before she married Drew's father, because Nan was dead-set on her "doing it right this time" - not running to elope shotgun only to have a divorce because the kid he was so intent on marrying her for had anxiety problems as a pre-kindergartner (that would later be considered related to his gender dysphoria early in life). He had wandered into the church's back room, where there was a CCD class of sorts going on, and they were talking about Genesis. Even as a five year old, Adam could grasp the basics of what they said; from a man's rib a woman was made by God. Now Adam, though able to comprehend that, never thought that was quite fair of Him. To take a piece of boy and stick it in a girl like that, she was walking around with little pieces of a boy in her! So, he decided, that must be what was his problem, too. Because what else could be the explanation?
He was just like Drew, he played cars, trucks, pirates, cops - never once did he want to play princesses or dollies or tea parties - so that must be because God did that to everybody now! He must have just given Adam too much girl and not enough boy!
Which he eventually knew was terribly naive and misguided, but it got him through for a while, thinking God and everyone else had made some huge mistake. And the realization he was misguided came when his thought he would eventually grow up and just be a boy because he could tell everyone it was just a mistake was thwarted by the reality that girl things were happening, he was growing up into a "young woman" fast enough to make his head spin and his stomach ache worse and worse than when he would have to wear those pretty and pink dresses to Pre-K. And when people told him God didn't make mistakes? He was confused, and hurt. So God had made him feel this way? God knew that he would hate himself and hate himself as he grew older?
His faith eventually dwindled away, but the name Adam remained always present in his mind - and when he was fourteen and it became official, he chose it for ironic reasons. To show, yes, others that he was a man, but also God that he was, and to express his betrayal; from both God and himself. How Eve betrayed Adam was clear in the story, and the older he got, the more he was betrayed by this "Eve" roll he was stuck in when he knew he was just meant to be an Adam.
So the official answer from a jaded young teen named "Gracie"? Was his name was about irony.
But it was so much more than that.
Because eventually? He did find his faith again, he found God again. Through a blonde with blue eyes that tended to preach more than she practiced and be vengeful, but was sweeter and sweeter as he got to know more of her. A girl who learned that Adam was Adam and that was it right in front of his eyes, though the road was bumpy, and a girl who inspired him by her courage to stand up to her parents when they said it was wrong, and wanted a future with him whether he could actually give her the kids that she wanted physically or not; he found his faith again, and she made him understand that God had done this for him, not to him. That God had made him this way to make him come out stronger, to make him come out as an amazing, brilliant, courageous man named Adam, just as he had originally done those billions of years ago. She taught him that He knew all along that this was how things would end up, intended for it all to happen this way. And Adam? He could find himself believing all that now.
So yes, the name Adam was ironic. But now it was in the best of ways.
A/N: And scene! I really hope that wasn't too hard to follow, haha.
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